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In
which a character created by artist A.M.Cassandre, set in a strange, robotic
future, finds himself superimposed on his own past....
THE DIRECTOR, IN EARLIER TIMES
From the
first frame of Kent Hugo's "L'Or Rouge", there's something
hauntingly familiar about that run-down robot. It only becomes clear
halfway through the short exactly where we've seen this character before.
He's the Art Deco everyman from A.M. Cassandre's Dubonnet posters from
the 1930s and 40s. In the film, when the robot's memories come alive
in glorious Machine Age color, there is no doubt we recognize him.
Kent Hugo was quite taken with this character, especially on the Dubo,
Dubon, Dubonnet poster, in which the character becomes increasingly
convinced of his drink of choice. "I found that the character had
also later been adapted into several different scenes, advertising the
same product [though] he had no story beyond the advertisements."
In creating the story for the film, Hugo "imagined how the character
would have aged, through the history of art in the 20th century, and
what he would be like now."
DUBO
Hugo pulled the short together over the course of 5 months at Sheridan
College. Before attending school there, Kent received his BFA from Ryerson
University where he studied film, photography, and conceptual art. He
found the project challenging but educational, and has high praise for
friends and faculty who helped him pull through. "The credits for
this project list one maker, but ideally there should be a group."
The first
challenge Hugo faced early on was the character design. How do you translate
a product of flat cubism into three-dimensional space? The artist built
the character model based on the famous pose from the poster, conscious
of silhouette. "Looking at the character from different angles
makes these details seem off, but I wanted to be true to the original
as much as I could. Stylistically I think it's interesting how only
one lapel is geometry and placed in a certain way. I'm extremely happy
with the character I achieved. I think the wear, showing his industrial
age innards, does a lot to evoke some sort of odd, sci-fi sympathy."
Hugo storyboarded
each shot, and created style frames for each new scene. "Since
I'm strong at verbally explaining visual concepts, I communicated most
of what I wanted to do in the pitch at the start of the project. So
the storyboards were quick sketches for my own organizational purposes.
The style frames were more involved electronic paintings."
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